UVA’s statement and definition on HAZING:
Hazing
Pressuring a potential new member or a new member to do anything against her/his will. Hazing is STRICTLY PROHIBITED and IS NOT tolerated at the University.
Apparently the ‘Hoo statement was not embodied by all because 2 charters have just been pulled by UVA because of hazing. People just assume the banned fraternities are minority frat houses. Such is not the case. One of the fraternities was a founding charter member.
The Washington Post reports:
The University of Virginia is revoking the charters of two fraternities for hazing.
According to The Daily Progress (http://bit.ly/1jifHZP ), the university announced Friday that it has terminated its organization agreements with Sigma Nu and Pi Kappa Alpha. The announcements said the incidents involved the “new member education process,” but they did not provide specifics and U.Va. spokesman McGregor McCance declined to elaborate.
Established in 1868, Pi Kappa Alpha is one of just two fraternities founded at UVa. Sigma Nu was founded as an anti-hazing fraternity at the Virginia Military Institute in 1869.
Holy Hell Week, Batman. UVA is playing some serious cards now. PIKE was actually founded at UVA. Both PIKE and Sigma Nu had some serious animal house reputation when I was growing up Charlottesville. Hazing was pretty routine then and also at a time when I started forming my opinions about the concept of fraternities and sororities. Some pretty nasty, dangerous, humiliating things were done to pledges during Hell Week, even though there was a no hazing policy in effect at the time. Perhaps University officials turned a blind eye.
In todays litigious times, Universities and individuals have been sued over permanent injuries and deaths that have happened as a result of hazing. Do college age men and women (I use the terms loosely.) really want to belong to the club badly enough to risk losing their lives? Universities have a duty to enforce safe initiations and to absolutely punish those who violate the anti-hazing rules (and laws of the state) that govern how people are to behave when taking in new chapter members.
If I were king I would do away with social fraternities and sororities. There would simply be none. That kind of exclusivity just has no place being sanctioned at our universities. In addition, many of them are too tied to ethnicity. Granted, Jewish fraternities sprang up because Jews were often excluded from the other Greek societies. Well, there’s another reason to do away with fraternities. No one should be excluded because of ethnicity.
Now other minorities have chapters across the United States on all universities that allow fraternities and sororities. Often the charters SAY that you don’t have to a certain ethnicity to belong but saying and doing are two different things. Very few get in who don’t belong to the ethnicity. That’s just not very American.
Good for UVA for pulling the charters on Sigma Nu and Pi Kappa Alpha. They probably should have done it 100 years ago. UVA has an anti-hazing hotline. Let’s get serious. Are the people being hazed really going to report themselves? These are the people subjecting themselves to humiliation, danger, and ridicule just to get to belong to the club. Universities must begin enforcing the law regarding hazing. Those who violate the law should be expelled and the fraternities banned from campus. Parents don’t spend a fortune sending their children to colleges just to have them die from some stupid accident that usually involves heavy amounts of alcohol consumption consumed by under-age kids.
Huffington Post has a collection of horrifying hazing stories. Click Here.
The question becomes, should social fraternities (the traditional ones) be allowed on college campuses with the potential for abuse that they currently have?
Not just UVA. The new President of Dartmouth recently issued a public statement criticizing his own campus for far too much student personal misbehavior, including dangerous drinking, hazing, sexist and racist actions at social events, nasty insults on the internet, and other misbehaviors which have been affecting the university’s reputation. He has promised to clean the place up. When the top person at the Big Green says something like that, one tends to pay attention.
I believe there was a fraternity death at Dartmouth also.
It all needs to be cleaned up. Everywhere.
How many kids die of alcohol poisoning each year at major universities? I expect there are several deaths each year. At what point are seemingly smart people going to start rejecting alcohol as an earmark of adulthood?
Lighten up Moon, its far less dangerous at UVA fraternities than it was in the past.
-U-Haul rolls to Sweet Briar were banned more than 30 years ago.
-Grain alcohol is no longer sold by the half gallon so they have to make do with half gallons of vodka for events featuring copious amounts of consumption.
-Easters was banned (moment of silent remembrance) more than 30 years ago.
-“Green Bottle Night” no longer exists.
-TJ’s is gone.
-Today’s underclass dweebs don’t drink as much as yesterday’s underclass dweebs.
-The UVA women are more attractive than they were back in the day, eliminating the necessity for a drunken trip down the road to Sweet Briar, Mary Wash, Randy Mac, etc.
-Cattle prods are harder to purchase these days.
Jelly beans aren’t. Ewwwwwwwww
What is green bottle night?
How well I remember those drunken road trips down to Mary Wash. Of course those were the days before there were any underclass women.
You can’t buy grain alcohol any more? No more green G-damnits?
You can still buy grain, just not in a gallon jug. Too bad it makes the punch in the world.
Mom
Cattle prods–LMAO!
Moon, you’re such a townie, how could you not know what green bottle night was. It was the night of the week in the summer when they sold import beers in the courtyard behind Newcomb Hall for a $1. Of course they sold $1 beers at Grad Hap (unless you knew the girl at the door and got a roll of tickets gratis), the summer concert series and dime beers at Sophies.
Laf, don’t scoff at cattle-prods, I still know where a certain well-maintained cattle-prod is maintained at a certain fraternity for use on useless pledges (particularly those who don’t serve venerable alumni beers in a fashion rapid enough to meet their expectations).
Everclear is banned…..”too dangerous”
So, we’ll have to make do with 180 proof vodka instead of 200 proof.
Oh the humanity!
More gov’t logic.
As for fraternities, etc….. I never could get enthused about rent a buddy….
@Mom
Have you ever heard of the man, the myth, the legend Dr. Clear?
Before your time and little after Moon’s.
You forget how old I am. I can still remember the recipe for grain punch, one empty keg, 2 1’2-3 gallons of Everclear, two cans of powdered fruit punch and a garden hose. Empty contents of Everclear bottles and fruit punch cans into keg through bung hole, fill with garden hose, have pledges carry the kegs to the top of the driveway, roll down the hill, repeat, don toga and begin to consume.
Well Party till ya Puke.
@Moon-howler
Those days are well in my rear view mirror.